Margot E. Fassler, director of the Institute for Sacred Music (ISM) and a professor at both the Divinity School and the School of Music, has been appointed the Robert S. Tangeman Professor of Music History by vote of the Yale Corporation.

Fassler is a professor of music history and liturgical studies at the Divinity School and is a professor of music at the School of Music. She is a specialist on the music of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, as well as on American music.

For her 1993 book "Gothic Song: Victorine Sequences and Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century Paris" Fassler received the Otto Kinkeldey award from the American Musicological Society and the John Nicholas Brown Prize from the Medieval Academy of America. She is the coeditor of the forthcoming book "The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography," and has four other books or monographs in progress, including a volume on the veneration of the Virgin Mary from the 5th to 15th centuries and an examination of the early years of the 12th-century German mystic and composer Hildegard Von Bingen.

Fassler earned her B.A. in secondary education from the State University of New York and did further undergraduate study at the Crouse College of Music at Syracuse University. She studied voice for nine years with teachers at Cornell University, where she earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in medieval studies, with a specialization in music history. She also has studied violin, piano and organ.

After teaching briefly at Mills College in Oakland, California, Fassler joined the Yale faculty in 1983 as an assistant professor of music history. She left the University in 1989 to teach at Brandeis University, where she also served as director of graduate studies in music history and music theory.

Fassler returned to Yale in 1994 when she was named director of ISM, where she oversees the school's programs in choral conducting and organ studies, liturgy, and religion and the arts.

Fassler has received numerous grants to conduct research in Europe, including awards from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is a counselor of the Medieval Academy of America and is a former president of the New England chapter of the American Musicological Society, of which she is a member. She also is a member of the International Center for Medieval Art and the International Musicological Society, among other professional societies.

Rogers M. Smith designated as Cowles Professor

Political scientist Rogers M. Smith, whose scholarly work has focused on civil rights and liberties, constitutional law, and modern and ancient political theory, has been appointed the Alfred Cowles Professor of Government by vote of the Yale Corporation.

Smith is the director of graduate studies in political science and is codirector of the Center for the Study of Race, Inequality and Politics at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies.

In his published works, Smith has explored such topics as U.S. citizenship, immigration, racial equality and liberalism. His 1997 book, "Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History," which was published by the Yale University Press, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. It also won several "best book" prizes, including the Ralph Bunche Award and the J. David Greenstone Prize (the book was a cowinner of the latter award) from the American Political Science Association; the Government and Political Science Award for Excellence in Professional/Scholarly Publishing from the Association of American Publishers; the Merle Curti Intellectual History Award from the Organization of American Historians; and the Allan Sharlin Memorial Award (cowinner) from the Social Science History Association. "Civic Ideals" also was a finalist for the Boston Book Review Rea Non-Fiction Prize.

Smith's other books are "Citizenship Without Consent: the Illegal Alien in the American Polity," which he coauthored with Yale Law School professor Peter H. Schuck and which won the SCRIBES Honorable Mention Book Award; and "Liberalism and American Constitutional Law." His most recent work, "The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Commitments to Racial Equality," coauthored with Philip A. Klinkner, is forthcoming.

A graduate of Michigan State University, Smith earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from Harvard University in 1978 and 1980, respectively. He joined the Yale faculty as an assistant professor in 1980, became an associate professor in 1985 and was promoted as a full professor in 1989. He served as director of undergraduate studies 1986-88 and chaired the Program in Ethics, Politics and Economics 1989-91.

In 1984, Smith was awarded a Yale College Distinguished Teaching Prize. His other honors include the President's Award from the New England Political Science Association, as well as fellowships from Yale, the Rockefeller Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. He is a member of the editorial boards of Polity, Studies in American Political Development and the American Journal of Political Science.